


Deviant

by Rookus



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 15:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10493610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rookus/pseuds/Rookus
Summary: A heated conversation between Trixie and Patsy after Trixie asks Patsy why she cares so much about the queers in 4.03.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this, I'm not sure yet, I just wanted to get it out of my head and was struggling a little with my other fics!

“Why do you care so much?” Trixie asked softly, looking over at Patsy’s reflection in the mirror as she took her lipstick off. 

Patsy shrugged noncommittedly.

“Perhaps I’m like Sister Monica Joan,” she said. “Perhaps I don’t hold with culls, either.”

Patsy switched her lamp off sharply and turned over in bed, pulling her blankets around herself. Trixie took a sip of her drink, staring thoughtfully into the darkness now surrounding them both. She knew that Patsy was withholding her true feelings. It was a behaviour Trixie had come to expect from her roommate after a year of living in the same bedroom, but there was something about this particular time that gave Trixie pause for thought. Their work in Poplar was never boring. They came across a myriad of characters, some less savoury than others, and although many cases were touching or shocking or often downright harrowing, it was rare for one of them to become so thoroughly troubled by a case. _Unless_ they were somehow directly affected. Trixie thought back to her case with little cheeky chappie Gary and how upset it had made her. How it had made her seethe with rage. How it had made her want to fight for them. 

And she thought about why.

Turning on her heel sharply, Trixie strode towards Patsy’s bed and snapped her lamp back on.

“Patsy, why do you care so much?” 

Patsy turned back around and frowned at Trixie.

“Trixie, what?”

“ _Why do you care so much?_ ” Trixie glared at Patsy, daring her, just this once, to tell the truth.

Patsy glared back. There were a few beats of silence whilst the two women stared each other down, the truth hanging in the air like a storm cloud, one utterance away from bursting above their heads, reality pouring over them like a torrential downpour. 

“I just told you,” Patsy said slowly, a tone of warning weaving its way through her words. 

“You’re lying to me.” Trixie replied, folding her arms across her chest, glaring at Patsy as she sat up and got out of bed, towering over Trixie by a good half a foot.

“ _Trixie_.” Patsy’s voice was low and threatening.

“Tell me the truth.” Trixie did not back down or break eye contact. 

“I _told_ you the truth,” Patsy said, her dangerously soft voice increasing in volume. 

“No, you didn’t!” Trixie threw back. “Tell me, Patsy!”

“Trixie, stop it!”

“Say it!”

“Trixie, _what do you want me to say?!_ ” Patsy was yelling now, her eyes flashing, her auburn hair falling over her face as she screwed it up in anger. “That I’m one of them? That I’m a queer? That I live in a constant fear of being caught out, of losing my job, my home, my friends? It’s alright for you to swan around telling everyone you don’t mind _frauleins_ , but it’s _quite_ another for me to say I’m the same. Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me? What you want so desperately for me to admit?”

“Patsy, it’s _me_!” Trixie’s voice was beginning to match Patsy’s in volume. “I’m your _best friend_! Do you think that by admitting this to me you’re outing yourself to the whole of Poplar? Do you think I’d run around telling everyone?”

“Trixie, you don’t understand!” Patsy yelled in return. She sunk back down on her bed and put her head in her hands, looking at the floor between their beds and letting out a sound that was somewhere between a frustrated sigh and a yell of anguish. “You don’t understand.” It came out as a whisper this time as she felt a tear slip down her cheek. 

The bedsprings squeaked as Trixie sat down on her own bed.

“You never really know anyone well enough to risk telling them a secret like this,” Patsy said, still looking at the floor. “Even if you think you do.”

“Patsy, look at me.” Trixie’s voice was softer now. She reached across and took one of Patsy’s hands in her own. Patsy raised her eyes.

“You know me, Patsy. I know you do.” Trixie’s eyes glistened with tears. Patsy knew they were partly tears of rage. “Look me in the eye and tell me, honestly tell me, that you thought you couldn’t share this with me.”

“Trixie, I –“

“Tell me honestly, Patsy.”

Patsy looked away, unable to maintain eye contact under such close scrutiny. In truth, she couldn’t tell Trixie that. She had told herself, over and over again, that Trixie would find her and Delia repulsive, told herself that she couldn’t share this part of her life with anyone else, told herself that as soon as she told Trixie, that would be it. She would be forced out of Nonnatus, forced out of a job, be ostracised… Just as Tony Amos had been. 

But in truth she knew, deep down, that this was not the reason. Trixie was right. She did know her. She knew that Trixie would accept her and love her exactly as she is. The reason she hadn’t told her, not even after Delia’s insistence, was that she was scared. She was _terrified_. To Patsy, loving Delia didn’t make her queer. Kissing Delia didn’t make her queer. Holding Delia’s hand didn’t make her queer. Making love to Delia, touching Delia’s skin, ripping her clothes off after too long apart, dragging her teeth over Delia’s collarbone, running her fingers up the inside of her thigh, making her a cup of tea, holding her when she cried. None of these things made her feel different or strange or _queer_. 

They just made her feel in love. 

But telling Trixie… Once she spoke the words out loud, to someone else, someone _normal_ … Once she’d admitted that what she was feeling was deviant… That was what made her ‘queer’. 

And Patsy didn’t know if she was ready to face that.


End file.
